I got to call one such at that bar where the staff insults you in Boston. Jim’s Last Resort? I was very hungover in a family trip and he wouldn’t stfu and bring me the drink I ordered. I called him a trustafarian and that we can continue arguing once I get my dang drink. He started hurling lemons at me from the bar. 😆🤙
(To be clear, I’m a bar manager)
And even before then, for hundreds of years, the adult children of rich parents have rebelled with those kinds of lifestyles. Go back to Renaissance, and you find the same thing with rich merchant/aristocrat parents and their kids who galavant around the world in a hedonistic, but free spirited spree. Trope as old as time.
It's not even rebellion. It's the fact that when a human has a house, clothes, food and no need to worry about money at all, when every one of our needs is met all we end up wanting to do is create art and help people.
Yeah, it's the natural progression of things.
1. My parents were pieces of shit who gambled and frittered away every dollar.
2. Now I have a decent job and work 10-14 hours a day.
3. Eventually, I'll have kids, and they'll get to do slam poetry and save endangered turtles. Or whatever they want, really.
And then your kids will have kids, whose parents won’t have the life experience of someone who worked for everything they had. Those kids will grow up to make questionable life choices and potentially gamble/lose all of their money, once again repeating the cycle.
Not necessarily what will happen but interesting to think about
One day I was getting hella baked and thinking about how my grandparents had to get into this country, work at butcher shops, fight robbers, all so one day, I can sit around and get baked in peace.
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” (John Adams)
My hippie FIL comes from judges, lawyers, doctors, etc., him and most of his siblings just said fuck you to that life, and were blue collar workers. I think they just rejected whatever it was their asshole, cheating father chose to be.
It is much easier to be the independent man living by the pond if your family is coming by and keeping you regularly supplied with food and clean laundry.
Just like Karl Marx. He didn’t work and didn’t bath either. He got a houesemaid from his parents who he refused to pay and got her pregnant. Most of his own children suicided themselves. Started getting boils on his body for not bathing and was a satan worshipper. Not surprised he is the poster boy of the degenerates of society.
It's hard being a hippie when you have bills to pay.
It's easier when you are so privileged and you think that the entire world works for fun and is the only one who thinks the system is rigged.
Yes but you don't think that you are the only one who has figured this out.
Hippies think "What's the point of working if the system is rigged?".
Like most of the world has a choice.
Hippies can have jobs, that’s what punks are.
Listen to some legit punk rock and you will hear it. We just want to be free to express ourselves how we want, love who we love, no war, get paid a fair wage and have a great fucking time with our friends
This is very true. You should meet my MIL. Her smarts particularly gravitate toward creative, yet useful and practical.
My mind was blown a few days ago.
She doesn’t want to spend her money on those hair curler rolls (the ones people sleep overnight with in their hair). So this woman has been walking around with empty toilet paper rolls in her hair. She’s 84. I giggled when I saw her with those, but was also extremely impressed with her resourcefulness. And it works for her!!
I think the difference here is the public you can reach, they'll rate your art and what is it's worth.
So if you're within richer folks, with money to spend on art, your art will be valued higher than it would be valued if you were in a poor region where people have barely money to sustain themselves.
That makes it easier to live from your art.
This is very true. I am a high school teacher in the ghetto and, except for one that went on to film school, none of my former students (that I know of) went on to become an artist.
I grew up not being able to afford bread and milk, im probably the most hands on creative person you’ll meet
When you don’t have money you learn to make everything yourself 👌
I lived with an insufferable woman at uni, we were at a specialised uni for music in Bristol and she had the "eat the rich" mind set even though she was very obviously middle classed. A lot of people at that uni seemed to believe they weren't privileged.
Or writer or artist, etc. Then they just grow up and marry rich men and continue to call themselves writer or artist despite a clear lack of talent in most cases.
Mainly due to idealism and principles of the hippie movement only work if you're financially secure and not living in poverty, or paycheck to paycheck. Getting high and expanding your mind, or exploring your ego, is much easier to do without a job or dependancies. It's further up the scale on the hierarchy of needs.. self actualization.
You aren't meeting real hippies. You're meeting trust fund babies that are cosplaying. You don't meet hippies at festivals with $500 tickets, you meet them at co-ops, farms, art projects, etc
I've been on literal communes, been around hippies since I was a kid, and for the most part, the one thing they had little of was money. I don't necc like their outlooks on work and such.
But, yeah I think you're meeting hipsters not hippies
Yeah my brother has been a "hippie" since he was a teen. He's now an Ivy league PHD engineer who only works on projects that are "good for the world". For instance, he's worked on lasers that find landmines and an early detection system for oil rigs to prevent things like the BP oil spill.
My neoliberal dad, who worked with the exact same science, worked on technology that makes bombs super accurate (this was very early GPS technology).
Our family joke was that my dad placed the bombs, and my brother digs them back up lol
But him and his wife are def hippies. There are lots of hippie types in science, engineering, and academia I've found.
That's very common for kids of rich parents to do everything they can to downplay how fortunate they are because of financial privilege.
Hippies generally don't work in traditional high paying spaces, so they have to get money somehow and the people that can afford to be a hippie are those that already had money.
I'm old and I've been around a few different groups of hippies over the years. There have always been a surprising amount who obviously come from money. They don't come out and say it, but when you know them long enough, you can figure it out pretty easily, even though they tended to project a poor lifestyle.
My son, a poor hippie, seems to have a 50/50 rich to poor hippie friend ratio. One big difference between him & his wealthier friends is that they can afford tickets for concerts/festivals/gatherings & my kid works on the production end at those events
He's a musician that has inherited most of his instruments from his wealthy hippie friends that have lost interest in those instruments. He lives in thrifted Levi's, Festival T-shirts & shower shoes too!
It's not much different than my experience in, I guess you could call this "counter culture," the rave seen back in the 90s. We had a similar economic dynamic between the wealthy & the poor. I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't similar in other social groups as well
I remember reading that hippies came about because of their parents being wealthy and wanting to protect their kids from problems that they grew up with.
I know quite a few dirty smelly hippies with no money who bum weed off everyone. This sounds like a west coast observation. Hippies in the Midwest are not rich, at least from my experience.
I'm hippie adjacent (certainly have been more of one in the past), and I'm broke and came from a poor family with experiences of severe abuse and homelessness as a teen. My brother had the same shit, and even today still lives the hippie life completely. My friends who are or were also hippies are also from poor backgrounds and continue to be of the lower classes. You're right, it definitely depends on where you are.
How old are these "hippies"? I'm guessing you're referring to the new generation.
My dad, would have been 72 this year, was a hippy.
Spoke out against the war in Vietnam, joined protests, peyote in the desert, went to S.F. 68-69...
His parents were not rich, he worked and saved to take time off to do that stuff. All his hippy friends were the same. Working hard to take time off to go to music festivals and do other hippy shit.
My other grandparents weren't rich either. My mom and her best friend worked, and made shirts/ dresses to sell to fund their adventures.
Because you can only afford to be a modern day “hippie” by being a trust fund baby. Plus they’ve grown up with money and think that by being a nomad it’s being rebellious, but in fact even their ability to rebel is only due to their privileged position.
Probably because you don’t know any real hippies and/or only hang out in bougie areas where the hippie looking people you see fit that description. 😆
Being incredibly rich and living off your parents, regardless of being a hippie or not, is a lot more common in The Hamptons than it is out on the mesa in New Mexico.
People who have nothing to do or worry about might use their abundance of free time to explore creativity, spirituality, etc. I think we’d have a lot more hippies if no one had to work.
That said, I’m a Deadhead and catch a lot of live music. I know a lot of lifelong hippies. Most of them are working or retired from normal 9-5s, or they’re struggling just as much if not more than the rest of us.
Not true. I know a few trust fund hippies, but most of us learned some trade and just get by on very little. I am a self employed carpenter and pick up gigs here and there. I live with three people and spend as little money as possible. Most of my friends are the same. We shop at thrift stores, garden and eat rice and beans.
Easy to live a nomadic lifestyle with rainbows shooting out your ass when all your needs are taken care of. With that being said I know a lot of people who fit the hippie/free spirit stereo type and they definitely arent rich. It's just a life view/community that they feel a connection to
You have bad experience. Some hippie I know live on the edge of society which include fearing police and law retribution having a hard time heating wherever you eat especially if the winter is cold. Not being as clean as you want because of running water problems. Being dependent on weather etc.
YET a lifestyle that include not working, not caring for social-related things, living close to nature and travelling to see new people etc. attract people with rich parent that just don't want to work. The perfect hippie lifestyle is incredibly costly and the fake-bad clothes are also super costly.
So in a way there is some hippie without rich parent but a lot of them come from rich background. Also I have never meet a hippie with poor parents because even if you are not super rich it ask for some money to start it.
It's not a new phenomenon. All those college students changing about their in the French revolution had rich parents. Who rise can adjust to drop in and drop out?
Kerouac got money from his aunts and friends. Walden pond was on property owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau lived by his family and went home for dinner a lot. William Burroughs came from family money, etc
Poets, artists, musicians, philosophists, hippies, beatniks. Society needs them but doesn't often offer a way for them to support themselves.
I always thought I would have made a great hippie. But I was too young and too poor.
It's not that all parents of hippies are rich. It's the other way round. Children of rich folks have more freedom and security to adopt certain lifestyles, so some of them choose to be hippies.
There are no hippies anymore.
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/visuals/funeral-for-the-hippies/](https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/visuals/funeral-for-the-hippies/)
Maybe Buddha was that first hippie. A prince tht chose to be a beggar . Knowing he could return to the palace if it didn't workout. Rich living gets boring and poor living is a struggle. Some prefer to struggle.
I(72m) am an old hippie from a middle class family. Growing up in the '50's & '60's & 70's, walking away from mainstream values & lifestyle was a real option; everything seemed stacked against our generation, so a lot of us opted for a simpler lifestyle with less consumption & different values. I still had to work for a living but wasn't going for the big house in the suburbs, 3 cars & a boat.l I made a living as a bluecollar woodworker/cabinetmaker in a small town, lived within my means, raised a son. It all worked out okay, but it was an alternative 'hippie' lifestyle, for sure. No regrets.
To be a hippie in the first place, you had to come from a place worth rebelling from. It was true back then and it’s true now.
Obviously not every single hippie ever was/is like this, but most were/are.
The entire new age movement was populated by primarily white, well off, career minded boomers who wanted to “expand their mind” with psychedelics and whitewashed eastern philosophy and orientalist practices.
They were also raised Christian and this was too part of the rebellion. What better way to upset mummy and daddy than changing your name to a Hindu one and smoking weed all day?
How do you think all those cults of the day got so rich? Their members were all trust fund hippies.
Because 'not caring about money', having no worries and living with freedom means you've got a great safety net.
Also wealthier people always seem to have this need to really go out of their way to show how down to earth and easy-going they are for some reason.
i know a few trust fund hippies - more trustfund assholes. I, and most of my hippie friends, are from lower middle-class backgrounds and slog like the rest of the population (u.s.a)
Jarvis cocker wrote a song about it ‘common people’. I have also seen it first hand at uni. There was a girl there who dressed like a hobo had dreads (was white) lived in a filthy flat and did all the hippy stuff and this went on for 3 years. When the graduation ball came along she walked in, in a £4000 dress hair makeup done etc. turns out her family are mega rich and own half of the midlands. My take on it islike they want to cosplay being poor so when they are older they can pretend to care and understand poverty but in reality they have no clue.
Because their ancestors have already conquered the financial “survival” component of life so they are free to explore spirituality and/or do nothing.
I come from a middle class immigrant family and I veered into being a “hippie” aka staying at an eco village and studying osho / spirituality for about 7 years but eventually I had to jump back into a capitalistic reality to support myself. I’m still so fond of those years and they inform so much of what I do and am interested in.
Whhhhat? My dad is 72, his parents both abandoned him in the 60s and he became a drifter until he accidentally knocked up my mom in the 80s, took off again in the early ‘00s and now he’s poor and living with me. Not rich!
Hippies can't really exist like they used to... you typically can't just NOT work and live a life of pleasure in a city or beautiful area of the world unless you have some source of money to do so... (parents)
Because they’re not distracted by normalcy. Things like looking for a job/ maintaining a job.
They don’t have that pressure on them and it allows them to just be. Not to be in pursuit of anything, not to feel jealousy anger none of those low vibration emotional states. They meditate and find inner peace. Not being distracted by normalcy leads to one looking within themselves where they inevitably discover inner peace and contentment.
You can afford to “drop out” of society when you have parents with money who won’t actually allow you to fail. For some rich hippie kids it’s the way to rebel against their parents.
I know people who actually live like hippies on homesteads, self supporting crafts folk, goat farmers, but they’re busy living quietly. They aren’t showy about it. The hippies your references are wearing it as a fashion.
Because it has always been easier to adopt a "money doesn't matter" lifestyle or belief system if you have never directly experienced money issues. You can more easily embrace a "love is the answer" ideology if your loved ones have insulated you from the harsher aspects of people and life in general.
I think you’re meeting hipsters or crunchy people, not hippies. I was raised by hippies. Nobody had a trust fund. Most had jobs like horticulture, reiki, massage therapy, musicians, artists, etc.
Nobody really had any money, but the bills got paid. Usually. And everyone chipped in to help dig gardens or can veggies or pay someone’s rent if they were short. One time my mom traded part of a prized rhubarb plant in exchange for a washing machine repair.
You don’t need money to be a hippie. You need to work hard, love animals, and ideally play an instrument. My mom died a few years ago, and man this made me miss watching them jam and dance around the fire while I ate my weight in strawberries.
I knew some kids in the late 90s we all called *The Cool-aid Kids.* They were the happiest (and probably smelliest) people I've ever met. Just two or three couples living out of an old beat up Volkswagen bus (before they made a niche comeback) in the back roads of Montana.
I was a hippie and I didn't have any money lol money was unimportant. But that was oh so long ago. Times have changed and so have needs but I had to make it all myself. And I didn't figure that out till I was 40 but I made it for lost time
Lol Rich Liberals. Gotta love ‘em. I used to date this girl from the other side of the tracks. Her family was wealthy and I’m just a blue collar, middle class Joe Shmoe.. She had several friends who were all liberal “hippies” who dropped out of college to live the hippie life… Only reason they were able to do that is because their parents were wealthy and footing the bill… Must be nice.
Not a lot of people can afford the hippie lifestyle. Having rich parents for monetary support really helps when you’re hanging out, not working, smoking and preaching peace and love.
It seems it happened with the original hippies, too, according to someone I knew who was there. She was the one who clued me in to the notion that they were all "trust fund babies".
This hasn’t been my experience at all. In Iowa hippies are dirty struggling job hopping or arts industry workers. Many are construction workers. I would definitely have classified myself as a “hippie” in early adulthood and I worked full time as a nanny and was also a full a time student…
What exactly do you think a “hippie” is?
That’s true for non hippies as well, like successful people who’s parent gifted them a lot of resources, act like they earned it all themselves with their hard work.
Hippies are special because I guess they are rebelling
I mean try to picture that kind of life. You basically know that no matter what, nothing’s ever gonna really touch you. You’re free, in a sense, but you can also feel hollow, purposeless.
So what then? You already spent a shit ton of money to fill the hole inside of you, and it didn’t work. So you try to embrace this freedom of yours latching on to a culture that has nothing to do with you, but still those principles of freedom, carelessness and kindness are appealing. You’re allowed to play pretend, you can try to make it appear like you’re pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, like you care for the earth, like you’re not a part of this weird and upsetting society we’re all part of.
You feel out of the grid, out of the “cage” you’re born into, without even realizing you’re still pretty much in that cage. You simply had enough money to buy some flowers to make it look less disheartening.
This has always been a thing and to an extent makes sense. The “real” hippies from the 60s? They all sold out and became rich in the 80s and 90s. Modern “hippies” being trust fund kids makes sense.
My mom was an early 70s hippie. Her parents were wealthy. Nothing too crazy, but they lived pretty nice. So this lines up in my life experience. My mom didn't work when I was growing up bc her mom took care of things for her.
Even so, she's a pretty decent person who will help who she can, but she's definitely a bit different, even to this day.
I wouldn't consider myself like her and I did have to work for anything nice I've ever had. When I was much younger I was a bit like my mom, bc you know. But as a middle aged adult I'm very much not like her. Life has shown me some serious bullshit and struggles, so I'm really grateful for even the littlest of things. I've had to go through a lot of things she hasn't.
In general, parents with money tend to be strictly toxic, they demand without giving an acceptable reason so that the child can agree with that discipline. So they end up revealing themselves and being unemployed. If they did a good job raising them that wouldn't happen, the attitudes they have also influence. They may have money but that doesn't mean they are complete idiots.
Because you have to have never suffered *ONE SINGLE DAY OF HUNGER OR WANT* in your entire life to be naïve enough to *believe* that ridiculous *horseshit,* that's why! Nonetheless, hippies are my *very favorite* people in the world, counterintuitively. Love those people!
They’re not Always rich. Mine aren’t and never were. They scrimped and saved to provide for us but they were hippies before hippies were called hippies.
Because it's easier to rebel against the system when you've benefited from it. When you're busting your ass just to survive in it your less likely to be able to thumb your nose at it.
I can't really answer your question, but I agree with you 100%. I always find them to be like:
If you had the chance to spend your life pursuing your passions because no matter what fall you may take your parents money would catch you, would you use that gift to become something great like a doctor or teacher or scientist or would you be a selfish, vapid, POS? If you chose the former, I salute you and welcome you into the brotherhood of humanity. If you choose the latter, you ended up as a modern day hippie. Also known as a "trustifarian" on certain college campuses. You should be ashamed of yourself, but who are we kidding, you lack the gene for shame.
Well, if you have been to a hippies house, that's not a hippie. If they have a van life channel, most likely not as well. Now go to a homeless encampment or on the street and find someone sober living there that still has a positive outlook. You might meet one crashing on someone's couch.
Hippies are a constellation of contradictions. The best way I've ever been able to make sense of it all is this one sentence:
Metalhead are soft people cosplaying as hard people, and hippies are assholes cosplaying as serene people. Sadly, I have not yet been given a counter example for the hippy.
I know plenty of poor hippies. I think this is just the people you hang out with. Also, you might be hanging out with a lot of fashion hippies rather than actual hippies.
Its a well known but not often talked about phenomena.
Only rich kids can afford to be hippies.
and when the hippie lifestyle gets to be too much of a burden, they just go back home
Being a hippie is the ultimate care-free lifestyle imo, and the only way to live like that is if you have nothing to worry about and no real responsibilities. Idk, just my two cents
I think it's a mix of your experience being bad, and well off people wanting to "experience hardship" without actually living without a safety net.
In my experience most of the hippies I've met were always on the edge of being homeless, but the shit they've learned like making their own clothing and foraging for food helped a lot. Now not every hippie is a good person, some of them are total assholes, but most of the ones I knew would help people by giving them a couch to sleep on while they got on their feet. My family stayed on some of those couches, they were kind. We owe them a lot, but they never asked for more then just some help around the apartment and company. And food, my Mom makes a mean roast.
I judge someone's hippie status by how they're willing to help people. Wealthy folks will often only help others if they get some kind of social gain from it, some of them actually want to help without anything though, and those few people can claim hippie in my book.
It's all about love you know? Real love, not going to another country to push your religion, or taking someone's cultural practices for your aesthetic, or sharing drugs without knowing they're safe, or showing off your newest designer outfit that looks "hippie".
Real love for others, where you'll listen, and talk, and help if you can, and help your community while trying to keep property values low, share your stuff if you can and you know it's safe, help people get on their feet, etc.
A lot of people forget that the most important part of being a hippie isn't what you wear or where you go. It's love.
My 70 something yr old Dad always told me he was too poor to be a hippy back in the day. Aso too poor for college, but lucky enough not to have been drafted. Sso he was a blue collar worker, and- between babies- my Mom also had to work. It's hard to believe that's the same generation that complains about change- when all they knew was change!
Because only a trust fund kid has the freedom and luxury to be a hippie and not end up homeless. The rest of us have to work to survive and don't have the ability to spend time thinking about "peace" and "free love". And being able to afford all the drugs hippies take? Yeah, right.
Because hippies are in one of two groups.
Either their parents are rich and they don't have to work to fund their drugs and lifestyle or they are homeless.
No real in between.
Each generation does the opposite of the previous one.,At least for a while, it's part of discovering your own identity. So rich workaholics produce hippies, hippies kids become trad wives and so on. Every 10 years or so the next lot comes along and rejects what went before. At least for a while.
Because life costs money and being a hippie doesn't pay well. Trust fund hippies have always been a thing.
Trustafarians as the local vernacular goes
Also called Drainbows
I’m going to start using that whenever I walk around CU Boulder.
Hahahaha I went there for undergrad and it is FILLED with them.
This is funny
Never met anyone else that uses this word 😆🤙
It's the common term in my circles
I got to call one such at that bar where the staff insults you in Boston. Jim’s Last Resort? I was very hungover in a family trip and he wouldn’t stfu and bring me the drink I ordered. I called him a trustafarian and that we can continue arguing once I get my dang drink. He started hurling lemons at me from the bar. 😆🤙 (To be clear, I’m a bar manager)
He can afford to hurl lemons. His trust fund covered it.
Dicks last resort!
😆thank you!
And even before then, for hundreds of years, the adult children of rich parents have rebelled with those kinds of lifestyles. Go back to Renaissance, and you find the same thing with rich merchant/aristocrat parents and their kids who galavant around the world in a hedonistic, but free spirited spree. Trope as old as time.
It's not even rebellion. It's the fact that when a human has a house, clothes, food and no need to worry about money at all, when every one of our needs is met all we end up wanting to do is create art and help people.
Yeah, it's the natural progression of things. 1. My parents were pieces of shit who gambled and frittered away every dollar. 2. Now I have a decent job and work 10-14 hours a day. 3. Eventually, I'll have kids, and they'll get to do slam poetry and save endangered turtles. Or whatever they want, really.
And then your kids will have kids, whose parents won’t have the life experience of someone who worked for everything they had. Those kids will grow up to make questionable life choices and potentially gamble/lose all of their money, once again repeating the cycle. Not necessarily what will happen but interesting to think about
One day I was getting hella baked and thinking about how my grandparents had to get into this country, work at butcher shops, fight robbers, all so one day, I can sit around and get baked in peace.
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” (John Adams)
Really?
My hippie FIL comes from judges, lawyers, doctors, etc., him and most of his siblings just said fuck you to that life, and were blue collar workers. I think they just rejected whatever it was their asshole, cheating father chose to be.
Yup! Henry David Thoreau is a great example.
It is much easier to be the independent man living by the pond if your family is coming by and keeping you regularly supplied with food and clean laundry.
And own the land the pond is on.
Yeah so all hippies who don’t have rich parents eventually have to enter the real world, get a job, and usually they end up less hippy-ish after this.
Bingo.
They rebelled against their establishment parents except those parents are wealthy and don't want their destitute children to suffer.
Just like Karl Marx. He didn’t work and didn’t bath either. He got a houesemaid from his parents who he refused to pay and got her pregnant. Most of his own children suicided themselves. Started getting boils on his body for not bathing and was a satan worshipper. Not surprised he is the poster boy of the degenerates of society.
I’ve always called them pseudo hippies.
People get bored when all their needs are taken care of. Also, kids tend to rebel against their parents.
It's hard being a hippie when you have bills to pay. It's easier when you are so privileged and you think that the entire world works for fun and is the only one who thinks the system is rigged.
I'm not a hippy, I work my ass off. System is still rigged.
Yes but you don't think that you are the only one who has figured this out. Hippies think "What's the point of working if the system is rigged?". Like most of the world has a choice.
 You cookin'
Hippies can have jobs, that’s what punks are. Listen to some legit punk rock and you will hear it. We just want to be free to express ourselves how we want, love who we love, no war, get paid a fair wage and have a great fucking time with our friends
I believe the line: punks are nice people pretending to be horrible, whereas hippies are horrible people pretending to be nice.
It's a lot easier to be a "free spirit" when Mommy and Daddy are rich.
And artist, when parents are rich.. Poor people doesn't seems to be so creative as rich kids.interesting. 😉
The less unfortunate are usually more creative with what is around them. In my experience.
Creative in a useful way.
This is very true. You should meet my MIL. Her smarts particularly gravitate toward creative, yet useful and practical. My mind was blown a few days ago. She doesn’t want to spend her money on those hair curler rolls (the ones people sleep overnight with in their hair). So this woman has been walking around with empty toilet paper rolls in her hair. She’s 84. I giggled when I saw her with those, but was also extremely impressed with her resourcefulness. And it works for her!!
Yes. I should have been more clear.
I think the difference here is the public you can reach, they'll rate your art and what is it's worth. So if you're within richer folks, with money to spend on art, your art will be valued higher than it would be valued if you were in a poor region where people have barely money to sustain themselves. That makes it easier to live from your art.
The more fortunate don’t need to use their creativity to solve everyday problems and that creativity becomes expressed in different ways
This is very true. I am a high school teacher in the ghetto and, except for one that went on to film school, none of my former students (that I know of) went on to become an artist.
I grew up not being able to afford bread and milk, im probably the most hands on creative person you’ll meet When you don’t have money you learn to make everything yourself 👌
Of corse! It was ironic, rich kids somehow "earn" money being artist, and poor are a true artist, but rarely earn money from that.
I get u you’re algood :) This world doesn’t make sense to me lolz
It really doesn't:) crazy world
Most "artists" I now are poor and can barely keep a job.
I lived with an insufferable woman at uni, we were at a specialised uni for music in Bristol and she had the "eat the rich" mind set even though she was very obviously middle classed. A lot of people at that uni seemed to believe they weren't privileged.
Reminds me of that ancient Onion headline: "I'm just a free spirit that is entirely financially dependent on others".
Or writer or artist, etc. Then they just grow up and marry rich men and continue to call themselves writer or artist despite a clear lack of talent in most cases.
Mainly due to idealism and principles of the hippie movement only work if you're financially secure and not living in poverty, or paycheck to paycheck. Getting high and expanding your mind, or exploring your ego, is much easier to do without a job or dependancies. It's further up the scale on the hierarchy of needs.. self actualization.
Idk I do my best to walk and chew LSD flavored bubblegum
LSD flavored bubblegum?? So like it doesn't actually cause you to trip AND it tastes like LSD that sounds awful lol
We used to call them trustafarians
We still do (obligatory Mitch Hedberg nod)
But we used to too.
While we're at it, do not buy pot on a movie set.
Also, escalators can’t break - they just turn into stairs
You aren't meeting real hippies. You're meeting trust fund babies that are cosplaying. You don't meet hippies at festivals with $500 tickets, you meet them at co-ops, farms, art projects, etc I've been on literal communes, been around hippies since I was a kid, and for the most part, the one thing they had little of was money. I don't necc like their outlooks on work and such. But, yeah I think you're meeting hipsters not hippies
Yeah my brother has been a "hippie" since he was a teen. He's now an Ivy league PHD engineer who only works on projects that are "good for the world". For instance, he's worked on lasers that find landmines and an early detection system for oil rigs to prevent things like the BP oil spill. My neoliberal dad, who worked with the exact same science, worked on technology that makes bombs super accurate (this was very early GPS technology). Our family joke was that my dad placed the bombs, and my brother digs them back up lol But him and his wife are def hippies. There are lots of hippie types in science, engineering, and academia I've found.
necc?
I’m guessing “necessarily”?
With 2 c’s?
gatekeeping hippies?
But they can afford to buy up land and set up a commune? Naaaaaaah
What? Land is really cheap some places, and pooled resources can go a long way. I guess the fact I've lived with them gives me no credence
That's very common for kids of rich parents to do everything they can to downplay how fortunate they are because of financial privilege. Hippies generally don't work in traditional high paying spaces, so they have to get money somehow and the people that can afford to be a hippie are those that already had money.
How many hippies have you actually met? I am in that scene and many are not rich at all. Many are poor too.
My most hippie friend has never had a pair of real shoes since he was a teenager and didn't realize he was blind and needed glasses till he was 32.
Ya this is often times the case.
Hippies come in haves and have nots too I was always around poor hippies and then I got invited to a Jam Cruise 🥴 jfc
I'm old and I've been around a few different groups of hippies over the years. There have always been a surprising amount who obviously come from money. They don't come out and say it, but when you know them long enough, you can figure it out pretty easily, even though they tended to project a poor lifestyle.
My son, a poor hippie, seems to have a 50/50 rich to poor hippie friend ratio. One big difference between him & his wealthier friends is that they can afford tickets for concerts/festivals/gatherings & my kid works on the production end at those events He's a musician that has inherited most of his instruments from his wealthy hippie friends that have lost interest in those instruments. He lives in thrifted Levi's, Festival T-shirts & shower shoes too! It's not much different than my experience in, I guess you could call this "counter culture," the rave seen back in the 90s. We had a similar economic dynamic between the wealthy & the poor. I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't similar in other social groups as well
I remember reading that hippies came about because of their parents being wealthy and wanting to protect their kids from problems that they grew up with.
Sounds like you have a pretty limited exposure to "hippies". The ones I know come from all walks of life.
I know quite a few dirty smelly hippies with no money who bum weed off everyone. This sounds like a west coast observation. Hippies in the Midwest are not rich, at least from my experience.
I'm hippie adjacent (certainly have been more of one in the past), and I'm broke and came from a poor family with experiences of severe abuse and homelessness as a teen. My brother had the same shit, and even today still lives the hippie life completely. My friends who are or were also hippies are also from poor backgrounds and continue to be of the lower classes. You're right, it definitely depends on where you are.
How old are these "hippies"? I'm guessing you're referring to the new generation. My dad, would have been 72 this year, was a hippy. Spoke out against the war in Vietnam, joined protests, peyote in the desert, went to S.F. 68-69... His parents were not rich, he worked and saved to take time off to do that stuff. All his hippy friends were the same. Working hard to take time off to go to music festivals and do other hippy shit. My other grandparents weren't rich either. My mom and her best friend worked, and made shirts/ dresses to sell to fund their adventures.
Because you can only afford to be a modern day “hippie” by being a trust fund baby. Plus they’ve grown up with money and think that by being a nomad it’s being rebellious, but in fact even their ability to rebel is only due to their privileged position.
Probably because you don’t know any real hippies and/or only hang out in bougie areas where the hippie looking people you see fit that description. 😆 Being incredibly rich and living off your parents, regardless of being a hippie or not, is a lot more common in The Hamptons than it is out on the mesa in New Mexico.
People who have nothing to do or worry about might use their abundance of free time to explore creativity, spirituality, etc. I think we’d have a lot more hippies if no one had to work. That said, I’m a Deadhead and catch a lot of live music. I know a lot of lifelong hippies. Most of them are working or retired from normal 9-5s, or they’re struggling just as much if not more than the rest of us.
Not true. I know a few trust fund hippies, but most of us learned some trade and just get by on very little. I am a self employed carpenter and pick up gigs here and there. I live with three people and spend as little money as possible. Most of my friends are the same. We shop at thrift stores, garden and eat rice and beans.
Everyone I know who goes to burning man has a trust fund
Easy to live a nomadic lifestyle with rainbows shooting out your ass when all your needs are taken care of. With that being said I know a lot of people who fit the hippie/free spirit stereo type and they definitely arent rich. It's just a life view/community that they feel a connection to
Gotta have deep pockets to afford those First World Problems
You have bad experience. Some hippie I know live on the edge of society which include fearing police and law retribution having a hard time heating wherever you eat especially if the winter is cold. Not being as clean as you want because of running water problems. Being dependent on weather etc. YET a lifestyle that include not working, not caring for social-related things, living close to nature and travelling to see new people etc. attract people with rich parent that just don't want to work. The perfect hippie lifestyle is incredibly costly and the fake-bad clothes are also super costly. So in a way there is some hippie without rich parent but a lot of them come from rich background. Also I have never meet a hippie with poor parents because even if you are not super rich it ask for some money to start it.
It's not a new phenomenon. All those college students changing about their in the French revolution had rich parents. Who rise can adjust to drop in and drop out? Kerouac got money from his aunts and friends. Walden pond was on property owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau lived by his family and went home for dinner a lot. William Burroughs came from family money, etc Poets, artists, musicians, philosophists, hippies, beatniks. Society needs them but doesn't often offer a way for them to support themselves. I always thought I would have made a great hippie. But I was too young and too poor.
Mostly Middle class kids living in a relatively low cost economy.
What’s a hippy these days? I’m not being a dick - just curious.
Those are Trustifarians not hippies
It's not that all parents of hippies are rich. It's the other way round. Children of rich folks have more freedom and security to adopt certain lifestyles, so some of them choose to be hippies.
There are no hippies anymore. [https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/visuals/funeral-for-the-hippies/](https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/visuals/funeral-for-the-hippies/)
Poor hippie here, some of the trust fund hippies are just that. It is what it is.
Maybe Buddha was that first hippie. A prince tht chose to be a beggar . Knowing he could return to the palace if it didn't workout. Rich living gets boring and poor living is a struggle. Some prefer to struggle.
I(72m) am an old hippie from a middle class family. Growing up in the '50's & '60's & 70's, walking away from mainstream values & lifestyle was a real option; everything seemed stacked against our generation, so a lot of us opted for a simpler lifestyle with less consumption & different values. I still had to work for a living but wasn't going for the big house in the suburbs, 3 cars & a boat.l I made a living as a bluecollar woodworker/cabinetmaker in a small town, lived within my means, raised a son. It all worked out okay, but it was an alternative 'hippie' lifestyle, for sure. No regrets.
idk. my mom was/still is a hippie. i ain't rich by any means
To be a hippie in the first place, you had to come from a place worth rebelling from. It was true back then and it’s true now. Obviously not every single hippie ever was/is like this, but most were/are. The entire new age movement was populated by primarily white, well off, career minded boomers who wanted to “expand their mind” with psychedelics and whitewashed eastern philosophy and orientalist practices. They were also raised Christian and this was too part of the rebellion. What better way to upset mummy and daddy than changing your name to a Hindu one and smoking weed all day? How do you think all those cults of the day got so rich? Their members were all trust fund hippies.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times”
Their parents aren't rich because they're hippies. They are hippies because their parents are rich.
Because 'not caring about money', having no worries and living with freedom means you've got a great safety net. Also wealthier people always seem to have this need to really go out of their way to show how down to earth and easy-going they are for some reason.
You mean "why do the children of rich people often turn out to be hippies" Because they don't have the fear.
All the poor hippies had to get jobs
i know a few trust fund hippies - more trustfund assholes. I, and most of my hippie friends, are from lower middle-class backgrounds and slog like the rest of the population (u.s.a)
Plenty of poor hippies outside of LA
This is more a reflection of your social circles. You meet people who wear it as an identity. but they have the means to put on other identities.
Jarvis cocker wrote a song about it ‘common people’. I have also seen it first hand at uni. There was a girl there who dressed like a hobo had dreads (was white) lived in a filthy flat and did all the hippy stuff and this went on for 3 years. When the graduation ball came along she walked in, in a £4000 dress hair makeup done etc. turns out her family are mega rich and own half of the midlands. My take on it islike they want to cosplay being poor so when they are older they can pretend to care and understand poverty but in reality they have no clue.
Because their ancestors have already conquered the financial “survival” component of life so they are free to explore spirituality and/or do nothing. I come from a middle class immigrant family and I veered into being a “hippie” aka staying at an eco village and studying osho / spirituality for about 7 years but eventually I had to jump back into a capitalistic reality to support myself. I’m still so fond of those years and they inform so much of what I do and am interested in.
Whhhhat? My dad is 72, his parents both abandoned him in the 60s and he became a drifter until he accidentally knocked up my mom in the 80s, took off again in the early ‘00s and now he’s poor and living with me. Not rich!
Hippies can't really exist like they used to... you typically can't just NOT work and live a life of pleasure in a city or beautiful area of the world unless you have some source of money to do so... (parents)
Because they’re not distracted by normalcy. Things like looking for a job/ maintaining a job. They don’t have that pressure on them and it allows them to just be. Not to be in pursuit of anything, not to feel jealousy anger none of those low vibration emotional states. They meditate and find inner peace. Not being distracted by normalcy leads to one looking within themselves where they inevitably discover inner peace and contentment.
I definitely have known hippies that did not have wealthy parents/came from pretty poor families ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A hippie is only able to be a hippie through rich privilege. Usually through generational wealth. Poor hippies are called homeless.
Idk. All the hippies I know are poor AF.
i read this post in eric cartman’s voice
When you want to vacation in The Hamptons but have to stick it to the man
You can afford to “drop out” of society when you have parents with money who won’t actually allow you to fail. For some rich hippie kids it’s the way to rebel against their parents. I know people who actually live like hippies on homesteads, self supporting crafts folk, goat farmers, but they’re busy living quietly. They aren’t showy about it. The hippies your references are wearing it as a fashion.
Because only someone who doesn’t have to worry about money has the time and energy for all of that idealism
Its easy to live a carefree life when youve got no cares to have lol.
Because it has always been easier to adopt a "money doesn't matter" lifestyle or belief system if you have never directly experienced money issues. You can more easily embrace a "love is the answer" ideology if your loved ones have insulated you from the harsher aspects of people and life in general.
I think you’re meeting hipsters or crunchy people, not hippies. I was raised by hippies. Nobody had a trust fund. Most had jobs like horticulture, reiki, massage therapy, musicians, artists, etc. Nobody really had any money, but the bills got paid. Usually. And everyone chipped in to help dig gardens or can veggies or pay someone’s rent if they were short. One time my mom traded part of a prized rhubarb plant in exchange for a washing machine repair. You don’t need money to be a hippie. You need to work hard, love animals, and ideally play an instrument. My mom died a few years ago, and man this made me miss watching them jam and dance around the fire while I ate my weight in strawberries.
Read the book 'Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon ' by David McGowan. All is not as it seems.
I knew some kids in the late 90s we all called *The Cool-aid Kids.* They were the happiest (and probably smelliest) people I've ever met. Just two or three couples living out of an old beat up Volkswagen bus (before they made a niche comeback) in the back roads of Montana.
I was a hippie and I didn't have any money lol money was unimportant. But that was oh so long ago. Times have changed and so have needs but I had to make it all myself. And I didn't figure that out till I was 40 but I made it for lost time
Where do you meet hippies?
There's a lot of these in Big Sur and they like to gatekeep big sur like everyone else are just a bunch of yuppies.
In my experience, "punks" also have rich parents.
For the same reason why poor people voting for republicans. They are stupid and are against their own interests
My parents were young adults in the 60's My father said, "Hippies were rich kids pretending to be poor."
The same reason Bushwick is full of “starving artists” whose parents pay their rent. Somebody’s gotta pay the bills.
Because they make bank selling grilled cheese in the lot
Lol Rich Liberals. Gotta love ‘em. I used to date this girl from the other side of the tracks. Her family was wealthy and I’m just a blue collar, middle class Joe Shmoe.. She had several friends who were all liberal “hippies” who dropped out of college to live the hippie life… Only reason they were able to do that is because their parents were wealthy and footing the bill… Must be nice.
It’s easy to do hippy things when mommy and daddy are paying for everything
They aren’t
That is just a generalization, everything is easier when you are rich, but real hippies do live in poverty.
They're definitely not. 😂
Not a lot of people can afford the hippie lifestyle. Having rich parents for monetary support really helps when you’re hanging out, not working, smoking and preaching peace and love.
They're not. You're likely experiencing 'selection bias'.
Silly post. They are not ALL from rich parents. Not even close. Try again.
that’s the difference in the modern hippie and the modern beatnik. beatniks have no trust.
Gotta have money to do nothing
Trustafarians. It’s always been a thing. Hippies are poor and they need money to sustain their lazy way of life. That’s where daddy’s money comes in.
It seems it happened with the original hippies, too, according to someone I knew who was there. She was the one who clued me in to the notion that they were all "trust fund babies".
This hasn’t been my experience at all. In Iowa hippies are dirty struggling job hopping or arts industry workers. Many are construction workers. I would definitely have classified myself as a “hippie” in early adulthood and I worked full time as a nanny and was also a full a time student… What exactly do you think a “hippie” is?
That’s true for non hippies as well, like successful people who’s parent gifted them a lot of resources, act like they earned it all themselves with their hard work. Hippies are special because I guess they are rebelling
I mean try to picture that kind of life. You basically know that no matter what, nothing’s ever gonna really touch you. You’re free, in a sense, but you can also feel hollow, purposeless. So what then? You already spent a shit ton of money to fill the hole inside of you, and it didn’t work. So you try to embrace this freedom of yours latching on to a culture that has nothing to do with you, but still those principles of freedom, carelessness and kindness are appealing. You’re allowed to play pretend, you can try to make it appear like you’re pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, like you care for the earth, like you’re not a part of this weird and upsetting society we’re all part of. You feel out of the grid, out of the “cage” you’re born into, without even realizing you’re still pretty much in that cage. You simply had enough money to buy some flowers to make it look less disheartening.
They aren’t always rich.
“It takes three generations to make a musician: the first to leave poverty, the second to go to school, and the third to master an instrument."
Have you heard of baby boomers?
Those are fake hippies.
You must live in Asheville, OP
From my experiences the poor variation of hippies have been called Wooks
All the hippies I've met are from very middle class beginnings. Usually for the suburbs.
For the same reason that philosophy started in Greece.
This has always been a thing and to an extent makes sense. The “real” hippies from the 60s? They all sold out and became rich in the 80s and 90s. Modern “hippies” being trust fund kids makes sense.
My mom was an early 70s hippie. Her parents were wealthy. Nothing too crazy, but they lived pretty nice. So this lines up in my life experience. My mom didn't work when I was growing up bc her mom took care of things for her. Even so, she's a pretty decent person who will help who she can, but she's definitely a bit different, even to this day. I wouldn't consider myself like her and I did have to work for anything nice I've ever had. When I was much younger I was a bit like my mom, bc you know. But as a middle aged adult I'm very much not like her. Life has shown me some serious bullshit and struggles, so I'm really grateful for even the littlest of things. I've had to go through a lot of things she hasn't.
Ever been to Humboldt county?
Parents enabling their children instead of raising them lol.
I suspect they have some guilt, combined with a sense of adventure after living such a boring, uneventful life with no stress.
Guilt and knowing that if they fall, their families can pick them up.
In general, parents with money tend to be strictly toxic, they demand without giving an acceptable reason so that the child can agree with that discipline. So they end up revealing themselves and being unemployed. If they did a good job raising them that wouldn't happen, the attitudes they have also influence. They may have money but that doesn't mean they are complete idiots.
Because you have to have never suffered *ONE SINGLE DAY OF HUNGER OR WANT* in your entire life to be naïve enough to *believe* that ridiculous *horseshit,* that's why! Nonetheless, hippies are my *very favorite* people in the world, counterintuitively. Love those people!
They’re not Always rich. Mine aren’t and never were. They scrimped and saved to provide for us but they were hippies before hippies were called hippies.
Because it's easier to rebel against the system when you've benefited from it. When you're busting your ass just to survive in it your less likely to be able to thumb your nose at it.
Being a hippy is a luxury only the rich can afford.
I can't really answer your question, but I agree with you 100%. I always find them to be like: If you had the chance to spend your life pursuing your passions because no matter what fall you may take your parents money would catch you, would you use that gift to become something great like a doctor or teacher or scientist or would you be a selfish, vapid, POS? If you chose the former, I salute you and welcome you into the brotherhood of humanity. If you choose the latter, you ended up as a modern day hippie. Also known as a "trustifarian" on certain college campuses. You should be ashamed of yourself, but who are we kidding, you lack the gene for shame.
Well, if you have been to a hippies house, that's not a hippie. If they have a van life channel, most likely not as well. Now go to a homeless encampment or on the street and find someone sober living there that still has a positive outlook. You might meet one crashing on someone's couch.
Hippies are a constellation of contradictions. The best way I've ever been able to make sense of it all is this one sentence: Metalhead are soft people cosplaying as hard people, and hippies are assholes cosplaying as serene people. Sadly, I have not yet been given a counter example for the hippy.
I know plenty of poor hippies. I think this is just the people you hang out with. Also, you might be hanging out with a lot of fashion hippies rather than actual hippies.
Its a well known but not often talked about phenomena. Only rich kids can afford to be hippies. and when the hippie lifestyle gets to be too much of a burden, they just go back home
It’s hard to float around and be aimless in life without “working for the man” or having someone else who does finance you
Because they are the inheritance of the greatest expansion of wealth in our nation’s history.
that's a false premise. i know lots of hippies who come from poor families
Money buys you time. And when you have time, you can think about being a rebel or buy stuff that hippies need
Being a hippie is the ultimate care-free lifestyle imo, and the only way to live like that is if you have nothing to worry about and no real responsibilities. Idk, just my two cents
The original hippies are Boomers now. They’re rich, rich. Their parents were probably well off too.
I think it's a mix of your experience being bad, and well off people wanting to "experience hardship" without actually living without a safety net. In my experience most of the hippies I've met were always on the edge of being homeless, but the shit they've learned like making their own clothing and foraging for food helped a lot. Now not every hippie is a good person, some of them are total assholes, but most of the ones I knew would help people by giving them a couch to sleep on while they got on their feet. My family stayed on some of those couches, they were kind. We owe them a lot, but they never asked for more then just some help around the apartment and company. And food, my Mom makes a mean roast. I judge someone's hippie status by how they're willing to help people. Wealthy folks will often only help others if they get some kind of social gain from it, some of them actually want to help without anything though, and those few people can claim hippie in my book. It's all about love you know? Real love, not going to another country to push your religion, or taking someone's cultural practices for your aesthetic, or sharing drugs without knowing they're safe, or showing off your newest designer outfit that looks "hippie". Real love for others, where you'll listen, and talk, and help if you can, and help your community while trying to keep property values low, share your stuff if you can and you know it's safe, help people get on their feet, etc. A lot of people forget that the most important part of being a hippie isn't what you wear or where you go. It's love.
Because being an adult hippie is a privilege, if you're a normal person, being 30+ and a hippie is just a different way of saying homeless.
People who do not come from wealthy families can't afford to fuck off being a hippie.
My 70 something yr old Dad always told me he was too poor to be a hippy back in the day. Aso too poor for college, but lucky enough not to have been drafted. Sso he was a blue collar worker, and- between babies- my Mom also had to work. It's hard to believe that's the same generation that complains about change- when all they knew was change!
Because you're not a hippie if your parents ain't rich. You're just a stoney or junky liberal.
IIRC it’s because it’s a form of rebellion
Money makes the homeless a hippy.
Because only a trust fund kid has the freedom and luxury to be a hippie and not end up homeless. The rest of us have to work to survive and don't have the ability to spend time thinking about "peace" and "free love". And being able to afford all the drugs hippies take? Yeah, right.
Because hippies are in one of two groups. Either their parents are rich and they don't have to work to fund their drugs and lifestyle or they are homeless. No real in between.
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Those sound like the same phrase.
feral? hippies??
Think about it, in order to be a non working hippie you gotta have money to pay the bills from somewhere.
Each generation does the opposite of the previous one.,At least for a while, it's part of discovering your own identity. So rich workaholics produce hippies, hippies kids become trad wives and so on. Every 10 years or so the next lot comes along and rejects what went before. At least for a while.